My 2002 L100 has 120K miles and today when turning over the ignition the car lost power and all of the lights on the dash went off.

After taking the keys out of the ignition, I put them back in and turned the key to the run position. No lights came up on the dash and the engine (obviously) wasn't turning over; no sounds were made. I tried restarting the car several times and left it for 2 minutes and then it would turn over.

I drove 10 miles away to the grocery store, returned to the car 10 minutes later, and again, no dash lights, no power, no sounds and it wouldn't start. This time I had to wait between 5 and 10 minutes before it would restart. I had tried several times to turn the engine over and had the same response: no dash lights, no power, no cranking, no sounds.

The car has had no problems starting and so this is a new phenomenon. The battery was changed about 6 weeks ago to a slightly lower rated Battery (650 CCA) after the old one failed, and I live in Georgia where cold temperature starts are rare.

I checked the fuses related to ignition and they all looked okay. I'm stumped and welcome any ideas of where to look to resolve this.

Thanks!
James

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The car has had no problems starting and so this is a new phenomenon. The battery was changed about 6 weeks ago to a slightly lower rated Battery (650 CCA) after the old one failed, and I live in Georgia where cold temperature starts are rare.

I checked the fuses related to ignition and they all looked okay. I'm stumped and welcome any ideas of where to look to resolve this.

Thanks!
James

Pull the battery and have it bench tested (i.e. advanced). It could be that one or more of the cells are bad. It's also possible that the newer battery isn't up to the task. This test would be free too.

As you just had this put in, that's the first thing I would do. You'd be suprised the amount of screwy $h1t that can happen with even a relatively new battery (four months old, in my case). That was in a Mercedes too...the battery wasn't cheap.

Checking the fuses would have been my other suggestion, but I see that you already did that.

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If the problem recurs, try cutting away the rubber coverings for the battery terminals. Sometimes these get sandwiched between the metal of the terminal and the battery post. The cover can also trap any weeping battery electrolyte and direct it down the cable, causing it to corrode.

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